


Seven Miles

by SkartoArgento



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5797123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkartoArgento/pseuds/SkartoArgento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A neurotoxin leak means Doug has to walk back to his apartment. When it starts raining, someone offers him a ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Miles

**Author's Note:**

> This is another fic that I wrote a couple of years ago and didn't realise wasn't on here. (Also, this is my favourite Portal pairing. I don't know why. It just kind of happened.)

The heavy stink of wet asphalt rose from the ground. Doug slung his bag over his shoulder and tilted his face to the sky. Grey clouds rolled, thunder shivering the air. Leaves tumbled over each other at his feet.

And he had to walk seven miles back to his apartment.

Someone shouted behind him. Hazmat suits and masks made their rounds. It had been three months, but he’d already hit upon Aperture’s underlying message. What could go wrong would go wrong, and the things that went right were usually fleeting. Apparently whoever decided to install the neurotoxin generator hadn’t quite figured that out yet.

Doctor Field had told him that Aperture’s message was adaptation. It showed them where they went wrong and they learned, changed. Doug wasn’t quite sure that literally covering Aperture’s mistakes was tantamount to learning, but Doctor Field insisted, with the spark of religious zeal in his eyes that left Doug both uneasy and intrigued, that the past made them stronger, no matter how many layers of concrete it was smothered under.

He took a deep breath, adjusted his bag. After being caged in the lab for three days, the fresh air would do him some good. Maybe seven miles wouldn’t be so bad.

The wind tugged his lab coat when he ducked under the barrier of the parking lot. He gave a small wave to the guard on duty (who barely raised his eyes from his magazine) and started down the road.

The rain hit after half a mile.

One moment he was kicking the pine needles at the edge of the road, the next those same pine needles were clinging, damp and stubborn, to his shoe. Black spread above him, an inky void that ate the rest of the sky. Lightning blinked behind the clouds. The rain froze his skin and began to seep through his coat.

He stood there for a moment. Sighed. Pulled his bag tighter against himself.

Tomorrow would likely be sunny and dry all day. The perfect day for a neurotoxin leak. The perfect day to have to walk seven miles back to his apartment. The deer would watch them from behind the tall security fence around the compound, nostrils flared and ears forward, and maybe Susan would persuade him to eat his lunch outside with her. Or Doctor Field would lean against his desk, smile and say –

Thunder cracked, vibrated all his bones and organs. The rain, shaken loose from the clouds, smashed against the road. Seven miles felt more like fifty.

On the other side of the road a car roared past, a bright wet blur that illuminated every individual drop of rain that fell in front of the headlights. It must be nice to be the driver in there, warm and dry.

“Why not,” he said to the rain, “pretend I’m another person again?”

His mouth tasted bitter. At least the rain didn’t answer him back.

Six miles now.

Shivering didn’t seem to be helping him at all. Several more cars rushed past, growling into existence and then gone again. What would the drivers think when they saw him, a lone man walking in the pouring rain and wearing a lab coat?

That I escaped.

His laughter was lost in another thunderclap. Raindrops rolled down his cheeks like tears.

Light bounced off the trees and showed the dark slab of road beside him. Behind came the low hum of another car. He stepped a little further on to the dirt verge. Never knew if they could see you or not, even if you were wearing a blinding white lab coat.

The car slowed when it drew level with him. He knew next to nothing about cars, but through the haze of rain it looked sleek and dynamic. It drove past, then pulled in a few metres ahead. The tail lights drowned pine needles in red and turned rain to crimson drops.

He stopped, hand tight on the strap of his bag. Visions of axe-wielding murderers and kidnappers paraded through his mind. Of his body buried in a shallow grave. Sometimes it paid to be paranoid.

Maybe he should just walk past the car. He couldn’t fight off an axe-wielding murderer with his bag of Aperture work documents. If any got damaged then he might as well bury himself in the woods. Besides, he didn’t think anyone would risk getting blood all over such a nice car. He gritted his teeth, wiped the rain out of his eyes and walked forward.

The window buzzed down. Warmth leaked out and he couldn’t help glancing inside.

His stomach clenched.

“Doug,” said Doctor Field, his voice bordering on weary, “get your ass in here. Right now.”

Relief warmed him more than the air, but he hovered, strap digging in to his palm. “S-Sir –”

“Kid, dunno if you noticed, but it’s getting pretty biblical. I’m not having you come in tomorrow with a cold, sneezing all over the lab and getting germs in my coffee, understand?”

He was sure that Doctor Field’s scowl was teasing, but sometimes he couldn’t read faces very well. Without another word, he opened the door and climbed in.

Compared to outside, the inside of the car felt like a sauna. Doug leaned back, let his breath hiss out of his mouth. “Thank you. Sir.”

“C’mon, Doug. We’re not at work right now. Henry’ll be just fine.” Doctor Field – Henry – buzzed the window back up and gave a long sigh. The wipers squeaked back and forth. “What are you doing out here anyway? Nature hike?”

“I was going to stay overnight. But the leak. And I was too late for the last bus back. Um. I’m getting your seat wet. Sorry.”

“It’s just a car.” Henry’s nails tapped on the steering wheel like a patient metronome. “Just a method of getting from point A to point B without getting wet.”

Doug smiled, but kept his eyes on his hands. “Then why’d you get such a nice one?”

Henry was all teeth. “Well. I thought it was cool.” He pulled back out onto the road. Doug leaned his head against the window and watched it mist over.

“I- this’ll sound… weird,” he said. “I thought you might be one of those people who grabs hitchhikers and does terrible things to them.”

“Only on weekends.” Henry glanced across at him, smiled again. He couldn’t help smiling back. In Aperture, their conversations consisted wholly of work and work-based topics. This felt almost normal.

A comfortable silence sat between them for a few minutes. Rain lashed the windshield, and the splatter of hundreds of drops crushed together looked like art. He wondered if he could replicate that in his paintings somehow.

After a couple more miles, the trees thinned out, replaced by streetlights. Doug cleared his throat. “I live –”

“I know.”

That wasn’t creepy at all. Doug hugged his bag to his chest. “My address is in my file?”

“Yep.”

“What else is in there?”

“Don’t freak out on me, I’m your supervisor, I had to read it.” Henry’s eyes were on him again. “There’s some… interesting things in there, to be sure. Who’s paying for your medication?”

He flinched. Of course that would be in his file. “Aperture. At the moment. It’s… a performance-related agreement.”

“Which is why you’re so eager to pull all those all-nighters?”

“I need to get the work done.”

Henry’s laugh startled him. “Cave Johnson would have loved you.”

From what he’d heard over the loudspeakers, the ramblings and orders of a long-dead man, he hoped that wouldn’t have been the case. He’d read the notes. He’d seen what Cave Johnson did to those he ‘loved’. “The future starts with you,” always rasped at the end of his speeches. There was something dark under those words. Less ‘the future starts with you’, more ‘your death will be most informative to our research’.

They drove down a street, then another. Henry’s fingers kept their tapping rhythm, and every so often Doug could hear him humming under his breath. Now that they’d stopped talking about his little problem, the mood felt almost comfortable again. He fiddled with his belt. What was a normal, non-work related topic he could bring up? What did people usually talk about in these situations?

“I’ve almost increased the range of the portal gun,” he said, and then cringed. That was still work.

“Yeah?” Henry looked at him, then turned his attention back to the road. “That’s good.”

More silence. His cheeks grew hot.

He saw Henry’s frown from the corner of his eye. Well, what had Doug expected, stammering like an idiot and unable to carry out a simple conversation? When they pulled up outside his apartment, he didn’t really want to get out. He looked up at the building, wished it was Aperture. “Thanks again, Sir. I mean, Henry.”

“Hey, listen…” Henry’s arm rested on the wheel, and the headlights cast flickering blotches across his face. “Tomorrow I’ll be in my office all morning. Come by at about ten. I want to show you something.”

A squeak came out of his mouth. He swallowed his embarrassment and cleared his throat. “Something?”

“It’s a new project. Very hush-hush right now, but you… I think I can trust you, am I right?”

“Yes, sir. Henry. I’ll be there.”

“Great.” Henry’s teeth gleamed in the darkness. “Now go do your work, and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He drove off with a little wave. Doug waited until the car had disappeared around the corner before he whispered “Bye, Henry.”

The small amount of heat that had crept back vanished under another deluge of rain. Still he stood, eyes on the spot he’d last seen the car. Henry trusted him. And maybe tomorrow Doug could pluck up the courage to make some proper conversation.

Maybe he could adapt.


End file.
